Conventionally, technical support is provided to a customer that requires troubleshooting of one or more imaging device errors. Technical support may be provided by a technician sent to the field to personally check, diagnose and/or fix the problematic imaging device, or by a technical support agent contacted by the customer to remotely perform a troubleshooting sequence to resolve the problem or at least identify the cause of the problem. To accurately diagnose the imaging device failures, support technicians typically require a complete and accurate view of how the customer's printer was used. Important events in the printer, such as error conditions, are also helpful in allowing support technicians to diagnose imaging device failures.
Accurate and complete information of the imaging device is also needed to verify warranty claims posted by a customer. If the imaging device was operated by a user outside of designed parameters such as, for example, when the user installs counterfeit cartridges, the user may be responsible for damages on the imaging device instead of the manufacturer, and warranty conditions may not apply. Counterfeit print cartridges are third-party cartridge products that are not made by the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) and have not been subject to stringent OEM quality control standards. As such, the use of counterfeit cartridges may degrade the performance and cause failures of the imaging device.
Warranty conditions also typically define product mistreatment that voids a warranty claim. When a customer uses the imaging device outside of the designed operation parameters that would fall under product mistreatment, warranty conditions may not apply.
In such cases wherein users knowingly bypass the terms and conditions of the printer use, the user may be motivated to suppress or alter the history of print cartridge use in the imaging device. Users may also unintentionally cause alteration or deletion of the information which can prevent technical support from giving accurate failure diagnosis of the printer for troubleshooting purposes.
Accordingly, a need exists in the art to secure information relating to operations performed in the printer and cartridge use that is tamper-evident such that an act of altering or deleting the information causes an indication that a breach has occurred. What is also needed is a method of verifying accuracy and completeness of the information relating to operations performed by imaging device and print cartridges installed in the imaging device. Additional benefits and alternatives are also sought when devising solutions.